


Against the Sky

by KChan88



Series: Hadestown Fix-It Verse [2]
Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 10:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20872760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KChan88/pseuds/KChan88
Summary: A follow up to As If It Might Turn Out This Time.Orpheus has nightmares after Hadestown. Eurydice helps him through.





	Against the Sky

Orpheus wakes up for the fifth night in a row.

It’s been a month since Hadestown. A month since he almost died. A month since he almost lost Eurydice forever, and somehow, some way, he brought the world back into tune. Spring is here, _real_ spring, with cool mornings and warm afternoons and yellow pollen smeared on his fingertips. There’s rain and sneezing too, but he’ll take that, and gladly. He hasn’t seen spring like this in years, not since he was a child.

He’s better now, but still not entirely well. The bruises from the workers’ beating are faded even if he still aches a bit. The one on his face from Hades himself remains, if less nasty than before, the mark of a god’s wrath slower to heal. He catches Persephone looking at it every time she sees him, and he wishes she wouldn’t because he doesn’t want her to feel badly over it. She saved his life, and he doesn’t want her thinking she didn’t do enough.

In any case, the physical pain, at least, is less than before.

The only trouble is, his mind can’t seem to catch up, at least not at night. During the day things are different. During the day there’s the sun and Eurydice teasing him and Persephone fussing over him and Hermes laughing at them all. There’s the taste of strawberry wine on Eurydice’s lips when he kisses her. There’s his music and the knowledge that they’re all here, together, alive, and that he did what he set out to do, that he made the world a little brighter with a song.

But night is…

Night reminds him of that deep, dark, winding path to Hadestown. It reminds him of every bad thing that happened there, no matter how many stars might cut through the cloth of the night.

He hasn’t had nightmares like this since his mother left.

It’s been a long time since then, but parts of it stay with him. He remembers when she did leave, and how Hermes was gone when it happened. It was one of the last years there was really fall instead of just winter, and he was nine or ten. He woke up and she was gone, leaving some kind of note behind about how she wasn’t meant to be a mother, and he would be better off without her. He reaches for a distant memory of her, all chestnut brown hair and green eyes like him, with a voice so beautiful it could charm anyone. She sang to him when he was very small, and though the images of that are blurry, he still remembers the sound. It’s always sound with him, notes and melodies and harmonies. He remembers sounds in his memories more than anything else—people talking, background noise, music itself, all of it sharp against blurrier images. He knits together songs out of those memories, sometimes, pulling them all together into a tune.

He searched for his mother for a few days until he fell asleep outside one night in the autumn chill, not finding her anywhere. Hermes discovered him in the next morning, and what Orpheus recalls most clearly about that moment were the crunchy, orange leaves on the ground and Hermes’ voice, Hermes, who always had a little bit of music inside him.

_Come on with me, Orpheus. Let’s get you cleaned up. _

The sound of footsteps interrupts his memory, and he doesn’t jump, because he knows who it is without needing to look.

“Babe?” Eurydice asks, her voice still full of sleep. “You okay?”

The wind blows through the grass when she speaks, the eerie, rustling sound leaving him with goosebumps. He wraps his arms around his knees, pulling them close to his chest, and makes himself look back at Eurydice, trying to smile.

"Yes."

He doesn't like lying to Eurydice, but he can't make himself say no, either. He should be happy, he _is_ happy, everything worked out, and yet....he still feels haunted. Everything is healing around him. Persephone and Hades. Eurydice. The seasons themselves. He should let himself heal too. He remembers the Fates' voices as he walked down to Hadestown, the voices he ignored by singing out his melody, and letting that overpower the doubt they tried to plant in his mind.

_Who do you think you are? _

Eurydice doesn't take that as reassurance, coming over to sit down next to him in the grass. She studies him against the backdrop of the night, her dark hair tousled from sleep. She's wearing one of his old shirts and a pair of slung on pants with a hole in the thigh.

"Come here." She crosses her legs, gesturing him over.

"What?"

"I said come here, you weirdo."

She tugs on his arm, and he finds himself on his back with his head in her lap. She brushes the hair out of his face with a softness he knows is just for him, and the thought almost makes him cry

"Orpheus?"

"Yes?"

"Talk to me. I don't want to make you, but I will. Not that I'm always great at talking, but you are, so just…talk, okay?"

Orpheus hesitates only a moment, because he doesn’t want to disappoint Eurydice, he wants to make sure they always talk, that he always hears her. "I...I had a nightmare. I have, the past few nights. "

"Hmm." Eurydice runs a careful thumb over the bruise on his cheek. "I know what that's like. I thought you weren't sleeping right. What did you dream about?"

"I..." Orpheus swallows, but he wants to be open with her, and has never had trouble before. "It was about Hades. He hurt you. I was worried he was going to kill you. And I couldn’t stop him.”

"Orpheus," Eurydice says, the sound of his name on her lips making him relax just a little. "I'm all right. I'm right here. Hades might have a long way to go, but he's not a threat to us, anymore. Persephone wouldn't let him touch you again, even if he does go bad." 

"It's not myself I'm worried about, I just want you safe," Orpheus argues, tilting his head back to meet her eyes. 

"I want _you_ safe," Eurydice shoots back. "When I thought you were going to die I...I've never felt like that, before." 

The tears rush to Orpheus' eyes then, hot and unyielding. They spill down his cheeks, and he turns over, pressing his face against Eurydice's stomach and wrapping his arms around her waist as his legs curl up, feeling like he just can't get close enough. 

"Hey hey hey," Eurydice whispers. "It's okay. I promise it's okay." 

"I'm so sorry Eurydice," he says, the words muffled against her shirt. "I'm so sorry.”

"Babe." Eurydice's almost chiding him. "Sit up okay? Look at me." 

Orpheus does as asked, trying to take Eurydice's hands but she beats him to it, putting them on his face instead. 

"I don't blame you for not hearing me." She stares him in the eyes. "I never did. You came to hell for me, Orpheus. You almost died just trying to save me. No one has ever loved me that much." 

Orpheus shuts his eyes, more tears rushing out. “I could never quite finish that song, until I met you. I wrote so many others, I don’t even know how many. But with that one…the melody came to me, but then I just…I couldn’t get the rest right.” He looks at Eurydice again, resting his forehead against hers and stealing her hands away from his face, pulling them into his own instead. “I think I needed to know what falling in love was, before I could understand Hades. But I…I wish I could think of that, instead of what it felt like when I couldn’t breathe. When Hades hit me, and I felt like every bone might break.”

“I know.” Eurydice’s voice cracks. “But you made it, Orpheus. It’s okay if it hurts, for a little while. It doesn’t mean you aren’t still you. If you can make Hades hear, if you can rouse Hadestown the way you did, I know you can do this.”

Eurydice gestures at him to lay down in the grass with her, the wind blowing through again, just a hint of a chill in the air. She puts an arm around him, cradling his head.

“I don’t want to be afraid of Hades,” Orpheus whispers. “I want to forgive him. I just…”

“Things stay with us,” Eurydice says with the wisdom of someone who knows the truth. “And one day, you will be able to. Forgive him, I mean. It’s okay if you’re still upset, right now.”

He reaches over and puts an arm around her waist, tugging her body closer to his. They lay there like that for a while, warm and tangled up in each other. It’s the safest Orpheus has felt in weeks, here with her and the newly burgeoning spring. No one is out here looking at him in the dark. Worrying. Waiting for him to bounce back to being entirely himself again. He knows he _will_ be himself again, though perhaps a little changed. He won’t let go of that hope and that love that drove him to Hadestown. Of that belief in the world that made him start the song in the first place. All of those things might be a little cracked right now, but they’re _not _broken, and they’re his.

He pulls Eurydice closer still, resting his chin on top of her head. “I love you, Eurydice.”

The words come out softly, but he means them. He means them as much as the first time he said them, and her eyes went wide with fear before she paused, saying them in return with a shaking voice. They were out here, in fact, on the edge of summer, and Eurydice had a new red carnation tucked into her hair.

“I love you too, Orpheus.” Eurydice speaks with that trust she gives him and only him, and he trembles at the meaning of it, because he couldn’t be luckier. The skin above his heart buzzes with a tiny hint of that god-like energy Persephone seems to have left with him when she saved his life. Sometimes when he sings now, a faint haze of gold weaves its way through the air, taking the shape of flowers. It makes him smile, and he likes how it makes Persephone smile, too.

She leads him back inside not long after that, to their cozy, small apartment at the back of Hermes’ bar. It’s not much, and it’s all Orpheus can really offer, but it’s theirs. A new green comforter rests on the bed, given to them by Persephone when she saw the state of his old one after Hadestown, having spent a lot of time in their room helping him as he healed. Eurydice tells him to take some of the strange medicine that Persephone keeps leaving behind, and Orpheus doesn’t protest, that ache returning again. It’s not half so bad as the first couple of weeks, but it’s still fading away. They crawl into bed, Eurydice’s back pressed to his chest, the way he likes it best.

“Orpheus?”

“Yes?”

“You’re safe with me,” Eurydice whispers, and it sounds as if she’s been thinking about saying just this, but couldn’t quite manage. “You…you’ve made me feel safer than anyone ever has. And I want you to know that you’re safe with me too. Especially now.”

Orpheus holder her tighter in response as the tension releases from his shoulders, and finally, blessedly, he falls into a deep, dreamless sleep.


End file.
